The Linksys firmware requires some of this. I have not yet determined
how much, nor how important the partitions are. It is possible to "tar"
it all off, partition your disk, and tar it back. The "hidden" file
.dongle is known to be vital.

A native Unslung (or Linksys V2.3R63) disk means a disk that has been formatted by the Linksys web interface, using a closed-source utility from Linksys. This utility will partition the disk and create filesystems, in order to let the disk be recognized by the firmware as a formatted disk. In the web interface, this disk will show up as 'Formatted (EXT3)' and it will be able to store configuration data managed by other Linksys utilites, most notably the information about shares, users and groups created though the web interface.

Disk partitions

A native formatted disk has three mandatory partitions, in a fixed order:

Partition 1 is formatted as ext3 and gets mounted as /share/[flash|hdd]/data

Partition 2 is formatted as ext3 and gets mounted as /share/[flash|hdd]/conf

Partition 3 is a swap partition.

We still neeed some info about the standard sizes for partitons 2 and 3, the information at CustomSizedPartitions may not be accurate for V2.3R63 and Unslung 6.8. Partition 1 ends up using the remaining space on the disk.

Standard files on Partition 2

The Linksys firmware requires some files to be present on the conf partition (partition 2). Some of these files are copies of files found in other places of the filesystem, such as the .htpasswd file from /home/httpd/html/Management, and are kept in sync with their counterparts by the Linksys utilities. A list of the standard contents of this partition is:

A backup of the configuration data can be done using tar to copy the entire contents of the partition. Such a copy can later be used to restore the configuration. The .dongle hidden file seems to be important to let Linksys utilities correctly identify this partition.

September 14, 2006, at 06:47 PM
by Steve G -- Started to add some information

Changed lines 3-59 from:

(Yes, as a matter of fact. This page is waiting for a volunteer to put together a brief writeup on the details of what makes up a natively-formatted disk for the Linksys firmware. - mwester)

to:

(Yes, as a matter of fact. This page is waiting for a volunteer to put together a brief writeup on the details of what makes up a natively-formatted disk for the Linksys firmware. - mwester)

This is a START, but there's much more that needs adding.

A native Unlsung (or Linksys V2.3R63) disk has:

- Three partitions, probably in a fixed order:

Partition 1 is ext3 and gets mounted as /share/[flash|hdd]/data
Partition 2 is ext3 and gets mounted as /share/[flash|hdd]/conf
Partition 3 is the swap partition.
I don't know whether further partitions are allowed.

The Linksys firmware requires some of this. I have not yet determined
how much, nor how important the partitions are. It is possible to "tar"
it all off, partition your disk, and tar it back. The "hidden" file
.dongle is known to be vital.